Tag Archives: Gaddafi

The International Criminal Court is due to receive a suit against NATO over the killing of Libyan ex-leader Muammar Gaddafi. But the Gaddafi family’s chances of finding justice in The Hague are all too slim, says journalist James Corbett.

In their suit, which cites the “deliberate killing” of a person protected by the Geneva Convention, Gaddafi’s family will target NATO’s executive bodies and the leaders of its member states, their lawyer, Marcel Ceccaldi, said on Wednesday.

“It’s not acceptable to kill a person without trying him,” said Louay Hussein, a Syrian opposition figure in Damascus. “I prefer to see the tyrant behind bars.” New York Times, October 20

The New York Times reported that a NATO jet and drones disabled vehicles in a convoy carrying Muammar Gaddafi near the besieged town of Sirte on October 20. Loyalists in the remaining vehicles scattered becoming easy prey for the emboldened fighters of the new Libyan state.

Reuters expanded the narrative on the 21st by reporting that Gaddafi fled from his jeep, hid in a drainage pipe, and emerged with an automatic weapon and side arm. He was manhandled and slapped by the soldiers of the new Libya. He allegedly asked the crowd, “Don’t you know right from wrong?” They took exception to the question and shot him twice in the head. He was transported to Misurata, scene of one of the few decisive victories by the former rebels. Gaddafi’s corpse was placed on a bare mattress and put on display for the public on the 22nd. It remains there today, although it is now reportedly covered by a blanket (Reuters, October 23).

The situation in Sirte is dire. Six weeks under siege after months of aerial attacks. Children and old people dead of hunger and thirst. Water supply hit. Hospitals without medical supplies to treat the ill and injured, and then bombed by NATO. The dead lying in the streets.

In their missile-launcher-laden graffiti-decorated pick-up trucks, the rebels drive into the city edges in the morn and back out by dark, hailed as ‘freedom-fighters’ by their embedded foreign press, they more resemble armed gangs.

Roundup of news from za-kaddafi.ru and other independent sources, including that Libyans took out a US paratrooper plane.

Today, Dr. Christof Lehmann, of NSNBC (No Spin News By Christof Lehmann), revealed some very interesting news. Incidentally, Dr. Leymann’s NSNBC has become well-known for its accuracy in reporting the situation on the ground in Libya. He says:

“According to reliable sources, a series of secret meetings between tribal leaders from Zintan, Libya and Algeria resulted tonight in an agreement that a unified front of tribal militia will enter the war which they call “The War for the Liberation of Northern Africa”. According to the same sources this alliance of tribes is backed by a unified North African Front, including Moroccan Tribes as well as Polisario who is fighting against the Moroccan administration of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

What do you get when a wannabe imperialist invents a war to get out of trouble at home, straying into deep waters that he neither controls nor understands, getting embroiled in an internecine tribal conflict that spins out of control? The answer to this question is the place where the UK’s David Cameron finds himself now: a 2-bn. pound nightmare.

Not so many months ago, we had David Cameron and William Hague declaring that the Libya Question was “not about removing Gaddafi” and that all it would take would be an immediate ceasefire from the Libyan Armed Forces. Not so many months ago we had David Cameron and William Hague declaring that the war would cost in the region of 200 million pounds, that there would be no NATO boots on the ground and that NATO would not arm the “rebels”.

What they did not tell us was that the French and Americans had been planning this imperialist little adventure for years–

Monday was the day we heard that the “US believes al-Qa’ida is on the verge of defeat after deputy leader’s death” as The Independent headlined the story. It stood out as a sequel to the recent United States action in Pakistan, which brought us the news (but not the body) of a dead Osama bin Laden. It appears that a US operated drone killed Al Qaeda’s top deputy, one Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, a Libyan citizen. After decades as a jihadist, Rahman is no more. But is that the end of al Qaeda?

On Tuesday, foreign affairs columnist for the Asia Times, Pepe Escobar, published a remarkable column outlining the command structure of the victorious NATO backed military leaders. Abdelhakim Belhaj, the lead commander of the rebels, and the two top regional commanders were once affiliated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LGIF). In fact, commander Belhaj was once the subject of a US led extraordinary rendition (aka torture) in Thailand. About the time the US planned to send Belhaj to Guantanamo Bay, the Gaddafi’s government requested his return to Libya.

On July 9 I took part in a demonstration in front of the White House, the theme of which was “Stop Bombing Libya”. The last time I had taken part in a protest against US bombing of a foreign country, which the White House was selling as “humanitarian intervention”, as they are now, was in 1999 during the 78-day bombing of Serbia. At that time I went to a couple of such demonstrations and both times I was virtually the only American there. The rest, maybe two dozen, were almost all Serbs. “Humanitarian intervention” is a great selling device for imperialism, particularly in the American market. Americans are desperate to renew their precious faith that the United States means well, that we are still “the good guys”.

This time there were about 100 taking part in the protest. I don’t know if any were Libyans, but there was a new element — almost half of the protesters were black, marching with signs saying: “Stop Bombing Africa”.

By Susan Lindauer, former U.S. Asset covering Libya and Iraq
at the United Nations during the Lockerbie negotiations

For European bankers, it’s a war for Libya’s Gold. For oil corporations, it’s a war for Cheap Crude (now threatening to destroy Libya’s oil infrastructure, just like Iraq). But for Libya’s women, it’s a fierce, knock down battle over the Abaya— an Islamic style of dress that critics say deprives women of self-expression and identity.

Hillary Clinton and President Sarkozy might loath to admit it, but the desire to turn back the clock on women rights in Libya constitutes one of the chief goals for NATO Rebels on the Transitional Council.

Smoke rises from explosions as NATO airstrikes hit Tripoli. The alliance is stepping up their air campaign in the country. [More images here.]

Guest blogged by Franklin LambTripoli

As Tripoli’s Palestinian Refugees awakened the morning of 7/17/11, like the rest of us here, they saw in the western sky over the Mediterranean a vast swatch of black stratocumulus clouds of acrid smoke from last night’s NATO bombing.
This latest attack, in the Ain Zara and Tajoura districts in the eastern suburbs of Tripoli killed 3 more civilians increasing the more than 1,100 total civilian deaths by NATO, according to Libyan Ministry of Health statistics. This latest attack is believed to have employed four US MK-83, 1000 lb. guided bombs and four US hell fire missiles.

Two weeks ago, on June 23rd, the Abdullah Muhammad Ash-Shihab Palestinian refugee family of four which included Abdullah, his wife Karime and their six-month-old twins Khalid and Juanah were among civilians killed in a NATO bombing attack. The family had lived in the Yarmouk camp in Damascus, Syria but came here seeking Libya’s well known security and quiet life.

In the U.S. battle with Libya, Americans are witnessing the consequence of gutting U.S. Intelligence during the Iraqi War, when President Bush drove out CIA officers and Assets who criticized his War policy. In my case, I got slapped with the Patriot Act and thrown in prison on a Texas Military Base, while Republican leaders reinvented the entire story of my work on 9/11 and Iraqi Pre-War Intelligence. It was not pretty.

The consequences for intelligence gathering and policymaking are not pretty, either. Last week President Obama demonstrated the most stunning ignorance by declaring that Libya—of all countries— has some link to terrorism. Obama was trying to justify NATO’s War against Gadhaffi’s government. However his argument exposed whopping gaps in the intelligence base from which his Administration has been drawing.

This time it’s not Obama’s fault. When Assets got forced out by Bush and Cheney, a lot of deep knowledge got shoved out the door with us.

Some believe it is about protecting civilians, others say it is about oil, but some are convinced intervention in Libya is all about Gaddafi’s plan to introduce the gold dinar, a single African currency made from gold, a true sharing of the wealth.

“It’s one of these things that you have to plan almost in secret, because as soon as you say you’re going to change over from the dollar to something else, you’re going to be targeted,” says Ministry of Peace founder Dr James Thring. “There were two conferences on this, in 1986 and 2000, organized by Gaddafi. Everybody was interested, most countries in Africa were keen.”

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Gaddafi was elected president of the African Union in 2009. Per Al Jazeerah, “He has also previously said he wants a single African military force, a single currency and a single passport for Africans to move within the continent.” That currency is the dinar.

In light of the brutal death and destruction wrought on Libya by the relentless US/NATO bombardment, the professed claims of “humanitarian concerns” as grounds for intervention can readily be dismissed as a blatantly specious imperialistploy in pursuit of “regime change” in that country.

There is undeniable evidence that contrary to the spontaneous, unarmed and peaceful protest demonstrations in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain, the rebellion in Libya has been nurtured, armed and orchestrated largely from abroad, in collaboration with expat opposition groups and their local allies at home. Indeed, evidence shows that plans of “regime change” in Libya were drawn long before the insurgency actually started in Benghazi; it has all the hallmarks of a well-orchestrated civil war [1].

It is very tempting to seek the answer to the question “why regime change in Libya?” in oil/energy. While oil is undoubtedly a concern, it falls short of a satisfactory explanation because major Western oil companies were already extensively involved in the Libyan oil industry. Indeed, since Gaddafi relented to the US-UK pressure in 1993 and established “normal” economic and diplomatic relations with these and other Western countries, major US and European oil companies struck quite lucrative deals with the National Oil Corporation of Libya.

I have several reading/speaking engagements coming up related to my new book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound: On Sunday, April 24, I will be speaking at Mothers Trust, in Ganges, Michigan. On May 6, I will be reading at the Quaker Friends meetinghouse in Lake Forest, Illinois. Specific details coming soon. In addition, I will be moderating a panel discussion following a showing of the film Concrete, Steel and Paint at 6 p.m. Friday, April 15, at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, 1870 Campus Drive, on the school’s Evanston campus.

By Robert C. Koehler

Whatever the strategic — and humanitarian — considerations behind NATO/U.S. intervention in Libya, a larger force utterly indifferent to both, and seldom sufficiently newsworthy to merit mention, unites tyrant and rescuer and keeps the world tangled in an endless cycle of hellish violence far beyond the scope of the conflict that generates it.

I’m talking about the global arms trade, for which wars large and small, whatever their cause, whatever their “legitimacy,” are necessities without which the goods would not move. They’re also more than that, but not the sort of thing we salute or honor with granite statuary.

After weeks of indecision, the NATO powers and a few Arab states have taken action against the Kadafi regime and its armed forces. NATO aircraft and missiles have devastated loyalist air defenses, troops concentrations, and supply convoys. Rebel forces have been heartened and have even made some counteroffensives out of their enclave in Benghazi. (Image)

NATO resolve is not strong, but an agreement today (March 24) will likely guarantee that the air campaign continues. Abandoning it now or reducing it to a no-fly zone only would be a severe embarrassment to the alliance and lead to lasting mistrust within it. Furthermore, it might leave Libya in a murderous stalemate or an unstable partition ever on the brink of renewed war.Continue reading →

By Brian Downing
The Libyan uprising once seemed sure to follow the pattern in Tunisia and Egypt where longstanding autocrats stepped down after large popular demonstrations. Colonel Kadafi, however, has rallied his forces and is quashing the opposition. This has put policymakers in the region and around the world in a dilemma between their preference for democracy and their reluctance to intervene. There are a few actions that can be embarked upon, but which is optimal and who if anyone will take the lead? (Image)Continue reading →

By Numerian
The extraordinary brutality employed by the Qaddafi regime against its own people has few modern precedents. Dictators tend to reserve their use of state terror for political or sectarian enemies. Saddam Hussein attacked those segments of Iraqi society not content to submit to a government reserved exclusively for Sunni Arabs, and Saddam’s Ba’athist neighbor Hafez al-Assad killed up to 20,000 members of the Syrian arm of the Moslem Brotherhood when they threatened his rule. (Image)

Perhaps the only equivalent instances occurred in Cambodia under the psychotic dictatorship of the Khmer Rouge, and in China during the Tiananmen Massacre. In both cases, the oppression was identified more with the ruling party than with a dictator; China’s government was in fact leaderless following the sudden death of Hu Yaobang, which precipitated the Tiananmen protests. Libya, on the other hand, has been under the unforgiving dictatorship of Muhammar Qaddafi and his family since 1969. Continue reading →

Lockerbie Diary: For years I was told the terrorist who placed the bomb on board Pan Am 103, known as the Lockerbie bombing, lives about 8 miles from my house, in Fairfax County, Virginia.

His life-time of privilege and protection, gratis of high flyers in U.S. Intelligence, has been a reward for silence on the CIA’s involvement in drug trafficking in Lebanon during the 1980s.

As sources go, I was more than a casual observer. From May 1995 until March 2003, I performed as a back channel to Tripoli and Baghdad, supervised by my CIA handler, Dr. Richard Fuisz, who claimed from day one to know the origins of the Lockerbie conspiracy and the identity of the terrorists. http://issuepedia.org/1998-12-04_Susan_Lindauer_Deposition He swore that no Libyan participated in the attack.